Use ICT to fix education issues

Editor, Reference is made to the article, “Students camp at Reb over withheld results” (The New Times, January 16). I personally applaud the progress that has been in the education sector in Rwanda, such as the nine-year basic education which allows even the children from “not-so-well-off” families to have access to basic education. However, it is outrageous that the system still has weaknesses like the ones highlighted in the article. In a country like Rwanda, which aspires to be an ICT hub and which is making tremendous efforts to make ICT an integral part of the education sector, ICT-enabled software should be designed and used so that errors such as mere misspellings in names are easily identifiable and therefore do not result into such misery on the side of students and their parents. Such a database will keep all the relevant information pertaining to every student and make it easy to detect errors in their registrations. Let us not forget that at ordinary level, some of these pupils are still young and exam fever and pressure may cause a little bit of tension which may result in errors like misspellings, etc. Secondly, malpractices like cheating, seriously, we are talking about national exams. I mean this is an important time of the year in the education sector where all the concerned stakeholders, especially teachers, are supposed to do whatever it takes to avoid such things from happening. Examination supervision should be strictly carried out and if need be; let the ministry hire invigilators to give a hand in cases where teachers are not able on their own. To Reb and Mineduc; please do something about this; it is such a big shame to our country. Ray

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Use ICT to fix education issues